Like the Goblin Bee
by thebunnyinthetardis
Summary: Loving a Time Lord means standing beside him on the brink of eternity. Loving two means having to choose... even when there are no choices left to make.


The lights on the flight deck are low now, simulating evening, making a mockery of time. As if anything makes us believe that night has fallen, soft and dark, gentle like a summer evening.

Summer is gone. There is no gentleness here.

I tell myself that once there was. Not here, precisely, but in our lives. In my life. With him. God, how I love… _loved_ him. Tonight I'm less sure, but I suspect by morning I'll either have forgotten my doubt or reconciled myself to it just as I have for almost a year. In the meantime, I close my eyes, willing myself to believe what I once did-that we will be happy in this new world, as long as we're together. Willing, because he is so much more than any man I have ever known. He shows me the stars. He embraces the future. He bends Time to his will and rewrites history.

His breath is warm on my skin, his hearts beating a wild rhythm beneath my fingertips. I live for these moments, when the night strips away his driving need to mold his universe and leaves him vulnerable in my arms. His need is palpable, every nerve and fibre tingling with longing. And madness. I rather love his madness. His wild abandon. The way he twines his long fingers in my hair, whispers my name as his lips trace circles against my collar bone. He promises me galaxies that will turn in my hand.

But he's lying.

I don't know when I realized just how much he lies, such is his skill. He's raised prevarication to an art form.

"Tonight," he whispers to me, one smooth, cool hand encircling my neck as he gazes down at me, grinning, his hair, damp with sweat, all askew. "Tonight I will show you just how much I love you."

He won't, of course. He never has, not really. But I murmur my agreement. There's no arguing with him when he's like this. There's never room to argue because he already knows what I am going to say. So I close my eyes, pretend that the waves of ecstasy will never end, and wait for him to grow too uneasy with my alien flesh to even touch me. He always does, in the end. I might as well be acid.

I wonder what he stares at, there at the window. Sometimes he stands for hours. Sometimes he laughs, but it is without mirth. I long for him to return to my side, but whether he does, or not, I am alone. Alone in this brave… new… world.

I want to go home.

Once, on a night like this, I begged him for a child. Our child. A child of two worlds—this new Earth we find ourselves on, and Gallifrey, long lost in a war he never speaks of, save in his nightmares. I ask him about those dark dreams. He tells me I will never, ever comprehend. He has suffered so many losses. His family is gone. But we could start anew. Surely I could give him that, at least.

Surprised by my request, he stared at me, caught in a rare moment where he had no words. He always has words, quick and easy and laced with honey. His eyes actually brimmed with tears as he began to explain the impossibility of it all, syllables catching in his throat, raw with grief. For the briefest moment, I saw into his hearts in a way I had never seen before, embraced the loneliness there, and forgave him every indignation. Just like I'll forgive him tonight when he rushes off, muttering about things I can't even pretend to comprehend, and then later find him brooding. I will never understand the pain that has haunted him his entire life. He is, after all, a Time Lord. He's ancient and forever, a fire burning in the midst of a raging storm. I am only human. He says I will wither. I will wither and die, and he will live on, and in my heart I know that he will never love me the way I dreamed he could.

I am unworthy of him.

I might as well be dead.

Soon enough, one of us will be.

But I love him. So desperately. So very, very desperately. Surely he knows that. Surely he does love me in his strange way. And he will find a way to keep me at his side until the end of time.

oOo

The Old Man sleeps on a bed of straw. When he sleeps at all. For all he sits, passive and silent, he's dangerous. I know this. Maybe that's why I take the risk. For both of us. I tell myself it will be worth it. I hope I'm not proved wrong when our clandestine meetings are discovered.

Tonight, I draw close to him, lay my cheek against his knee, and ask him if the stories are true—that leaves shone silver under the light of a distant sun. That two moons rose in an eternally autumn sky. He doesn't have to tell me. I see the truth of it in his dark, rheumy eyes. That, and so many emotions. Secrets. Sorrow. He turns away as I gently stroke his wrinkled cheek, wishing I could brush away the years with my fingertips. It's the least I can do, for all he's done for me.

The Old Man comforts me, but not with words. He rarely speaks at all, such is his concentration. On what, I don't know. Perhaps just the will to survive. I wouldn't want to, in his place. On rare occasions, he counsels me in hushed tones, whispered cautions deep in the night. Maybe he thinks that I won't listen to more, that I would laugh at his audacity and spit in his face, just like my husband . But he's right. He is so… right. He has nothing to do but listen, and I have nothing to do but talk. So, I tell him everything, a penitent at the foot of her Confessor. If he cannot forgive me, than surely I am damned for the part I've played in the destruction of the world.

I give away my love, day after day, to the most amazing man I have ever known. That I could ever hope to know. And when he's bored, he changes me like a glove, but never puts me far from his sight. He needs me too much to stay away for long. At his call I am at his side once more, his twin hearts beating against my breasts as he draws me close and tells me tales of adventures in Time and Space. He justifies past treacheries with words like _deliverance_ and _mercy_ and thinks that I don't notice. I wonder if he knows that my blind faith has gone, leaving only a slowly sharpening resignation in its place. That would be giving me too much credit, I suppose. Lowly thing that I am. Stupid little ape...

The old man listens to all of this, but says nothing. What is there to say? The only sound in the little hut is our breathing. Then, he raises his head, arthritic fingers pressing against my lips. His eyes are wide. Fear settles like poisoned fruit in my belly. I pray we have not been found out. I pray that I can use the knife I've hidden in the straw.

One of us has to die.

As the flap of the tent is flicked aside, a torch illuminates our treason. Then the light snaps off and keen, bright eyes peer at us. My beloved persecutor. Only his lips are smiling.

"Lucy," he coos. "Little, Lucy Saxon, is that you?"

"Leave her alone," the Old Man says, softly, so, so softly.

Harry's gaze flicks between us and he sits back on his haunches, clapping his hands together like a grinder monkey.

"Oh! Are we being naughty? Very, _very_, naughty?"

"Harry," I whisper, letting go all thoughts of the knife, praying he doesn't see it. Praying he does and will use it and set me free. "It isn't what you think..."

To my shame, I realize that I will lie. I will say anything, _do anything_ to escape the inevitable.

"Lucy," he whispers again, crawling through the straw, parting my lips with his fingers, "you silly little thing. You forgot to take your medicine..."

I would beg him to stop, but he has a handful of pills-pink and blue and white-and the Old Man is vulnerable. I take them all.

With one strong hand, Harry draws me roughly to himself, bending me over with lustful intent. With the other, he takes hold of the Old Man's collar and drags him to unsteady feet. He will make examples of us both.

He parades us loudly through the halls, past the weary staff, their eyes downcast. I force myself to laugh; become a willing participant in our punishment, surrendering myself to the cloying numbness that defines my life. Once more, down the rabbit hole.

"Lucy, my Lucy," he spins me like on long-forgotten dance floors in a time before I knew anything at all about the nature of Time. When he spins the Old Man, the poor dear stumbles, sprawling on the ground. No one laughs except for Harry.

"My darling, must you—"

"Must I? _Must I_?" Again, only his lips are smiling. "Lucy, fetch me my fiddle. I want to play while Rome burns. Oh, wait. Rome already burned! Oh, what the hell. Let's burn it _again_."

He clicks his fingers, and half of Italy is gone.

"Oooh," he says a moment later, mock concern creasing his brow. "Now where will I get my pizza? Is Chicago still there? Someone! See if Chicago is still there. I… _want_… _**pizza**_!"

I can't help but laugh now, twining my arms through his as he lifts the Old Man effortlessly and propels him ahead of us. Someone curses me as we move on to visit more _interesting_ prisoners. They might thank me later, when he doesn't come back.

This is the game we play. The ritual we observe. They are his puppets and he is their Master, and I...? I am the Mistress of Ceremonies. Either I play my part, or I cry and beg them to intervene. Why should they help me? I have done little enough to help any of them. They have no pity for me tonight. If ever they did. They look to the Old Man to make it right. They plot and scheme and secrets pass between them in the shadows. They think I don't know. But I do. And I could betray them with a word. But I need for the Old Man to make it right as much as they do. Perhaps more. Only he can gave me back what I've lost. Who I have lost. The man I thought I knew. The man I love.

In the kitchen, Harry dances with the knives and fills his pockets with Jelly Babies. He feeds them to us one by one, sealing them with suffocating kisses until my head is spinning and the Old Man is choking.

I reach to help when my staggering coconspirator stumbles to his knees, but I am thrust aside, my face stinging with the warning of what will follow. Another bruise to powder away. Another reason to kill or be killed.

Who am I fooling? There is no escape. Not for any of us. I should have known better than to tempt a Time Lord's wrath.

oOo

The night is dark and raw. After the final blow falls, his rage is spent, and he is no longer screaming obscenities, accusing us of betrayal, he weeps like a child without a home and falls asleep in my arms. I pride myself in knowing that it is the only place he ever sleeps. My arms. My loving arms. No one else can give him what I can.

Is this what I have become? A shameless, shameful plaything, groomed for some secret purpose? The blade of the knife I had hidden earlier glints in the false moonlight, a shimmering, metal promise.

Slowly, so as not to wake him, I wrap my fingers around the blade until it hurts, until that pain is the only thing I can feel. I will end this. I will end it all.

"No…"

I'm startled by the strength of the Old Man's hand on my wrist. He pries the knife from my hand and throws it away.

_Let me die_, I want to tell him. _Let _him_ die_.

The Old Man levels his gaze on me. His face is dark with bruises. Dried blood clings to his nose and lips. He wheezes four words that fall like hammers in my already aching head. "I'm not finished yet."

And just like that, I realize that I will never be free.

I turn back to Harry Saxon, caress his cheek with the tips of my bloody fingers. take him in my arms, and wait for it all to happen again.

_I will never forgive him_.

The Old Man's eyes are full of tears. I wonder how he will.

#


End file.
